§ 21. Captain GARRO-JONESasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the normal length of time it would take by the quickest available means to obtain the views of all the Dominions on an urgent question of foreign politics, assuming that each of the Dominion Premiers was able to reply immediately on receipt of his communication?
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREOn the assumptions made by the hon. Member, the time would be limited to that needed for any necessary coding and decoding and for transmission of the message and the replies; and that, in turn, would depend on the length of each message.
§ Captain GARRO-JONESCan the hon. Gentleman say what is the normal length of time taken to transmit messages to the most remote of the Dominions?
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREIt varies a great deal in accordance with the pressure of work along the particular line, and it really would be impossible to give even average figures for the various Dominions established throughout both hemispheres.